TO BE CONTINUED.
[THE POLITICAL PRINCIPLE OF THE SOCIAL RESTORATION OF FRANCE.]
BY F. RAMIERE, S.J.
FROM LES ETUDES RELIGIEUSES.
The great danger of France at the present time is neither the decline of her military power, nor the diminution of her political influence, nor the deep wound inflicted on her finances by an enormous war contribution, nor the aggrandizement of Prussia, nor even the unchaining of the Revolution: it is the division among right-thinking men.
Supposing that all men in or out of the Assembly, united by the indissoluble bond of principle, sincerely desired the re-establishment of order, the revolutionary monster would soon be rendered harmless. The healthy influences now paralyzed would regain their action; with security, legitimate interests would recover their power of expansion; the vital strength of the country would develop rapidly; and, thanks to the vigorous elasticity which characterizes our race, we would soon resume the rank in Europe that belongs to us.
Let us recollect the wonderful promptitude with which France, reduced to extremity by the religious wars, reached the apogee of her prosperity under Louis XIII. We would rise again with equal facility, if the good dispositions, not wanting in France, could be bound together, and oppose a compact fasces to the revolutionary passions, alas! too well united for destruction.
Unfortunately, it is not so. Unity of thought and action, which is the supreme necessity of every government, is wanting to-day in those who are alone able to save us, and it has become the exclusive privilege of the party that is working for our ruin. M. Le Play, who, in a recent treatise, warns us of the danger of the situation, sees but one remedy: the abandonment for a time at least of political questions, and the concentration of the efforts of all true men for the study and solution of the social question. Says M. Le Play: “The enlightened men who compose the majority of our Assembly render themselves powerless by their division on what is called the political question—that is to say, on the form of sovereignty. They may be assured that each political party, when it advances its principle, raises against it a majority formed by the coalition of rival parties. When, on the contrary, this same party takes up the social question, that is to say, the immediate interest of the family, it gains the majority, sometimes even unanimity. It is sufficient to know the cause of the evil to find the remedy. The conservatives have the power to establish a strong majority. It is only necessary to avoid the subject that divides them, and to devote themselves to the one that draws them together.”
There is much truth in this observation, and we are far from wishing to combat it on the whole. The eminent publicist who, in this same work, accords so favorable an opinion to our studies on the rights of men, knows with what warm sympathy we follow his useful labors for social reform. We appreciate as fully as he the importance of the question to which he desires to draw the attention of all true friends of order. With him we believe that the social order is anterior to the political, and that, at a time when society is disorganized even in its original elements, it is there above all that the remedy must be applied. How can a good government be given to a nation that the anti-social propaganda has rendered ungovernable?